Summary
Hec scolds Ricky about the way he was talking to the hunters, saying that he made it sound like Hec was molesting him. Hec confides to Ricky that he went to jail for manslaughter after a drunken fight when he was younger. "Double gangster! You need a teardrop tattoo," Ricky says, excitedly. Hec decides that he's better off in the bush than going back to jail, and instructs Ricky to go back alone to Child Services.
"There's no more homes, just juvie!" Ricky protests, saying that the state does not care about kids like him. Hearing this, Hec decides that they will have to stay in the bush, but he warns Ricky that it will be tough, since they are going into winter. They begin to run through the bush, before deciding it would be better to just walk fast.
Paula and the others go in search of Hec and Ricky. Hec and Ricky steal clothes, shoes, and food from various camping outposts, and hunt for their own food. We see Ricky reading to Hec by a campfire.
Chapter 6: Close to the Sky. At the lake where Bella told Ricky she wanted to be buried, Ricky discusses Bella's wishes, but Hec doesn't believe him. "Bella didn't have any family...she wanted to save us poor wretches when no one else wanted us," Hec says, and they decide to camp there.
On a news program, Paula Hall talks to some newscasters about Ricky and his delinquency. While they want to look at the fact that Ricky is an innocent child, Paula focuses on the fact that he's a menace to society.
Back in the bush, Ricky complains about the call of a strange bird in the trees. Hec identifies the bird as a huia, which is supposed to be extinct, and the two of them realize they could probably become rich and famous for finding the bird. At a nearby campsite, Ricky finds some books, and then a man in one of the bunkbeds. He thinks the man is dead at first, but then the man gasps awake, clearly ailing in some way.
Hec tells Ricky that there are some bush people about two hours away, and thinks they should bring the man to them. Hec sends Ricky to go alone to the bush people, while Hec stays with the man, and Ricky sets off with Tupac into the unknown wilderness.
On his way, Ricky encounters a young girl on horseback, who asks him what he's doing there. He asks her to "radio in a chopper," and she makes fun of him. They ride on her horse to her house.
Chapter 7: A Normal Life. At the girl's house, the girl calls someone named Bruce and tells him to check out the dying man. Ricky says he should go back and warn Hec that someone is coming to check on him, when the girl, whose name is Kahu, tells him she recognizes him from the "Wanted" ads in the paper. He asks her where her parents are, and she lies that they're dead, before saying what they're actually up to. Kahu goes on a lengthy tirade about how she talks too much, and Ricky just stares at her, clearly attracted to her.
Suddenly, Kahu's father comes in complaining about the game he's watching. He recognizes Ricky Baker and offers him some sausages. "Can I have a selfie please?" he asks, and they take some. As he leaves, the father tells Ricky to keep doing what he's doing, and "stay Maori."
Kahu asks Ricky why he's on the run, and whether he gets along with Hec. He tells her that his mother got rid of him when he was little, before pulling out a picture of her. "You ever try to find her?" Kahu asks, deciding it would be better if she looked for him. Kahu plays a song for Ricky on the guitar and he falls asleep.
When he wakes up, Ricky panics, realizing he slept in, and Kahu rides him back to the bush on her horse. As she leaves, Ricky reaches his hand out to her, longingly, before going to find Hec. At the cabin, he sees that the cops have arrived, including Paula from Child Welfare. She yells at the dying man, asking where Hec and Ricky went.
A cop tries to calm Paula down, telling her that the dying man is a ranger with diabetes and Hec and Ricky saved him. Paula talks to a man named Gavin who tells her they will set up something called "Stingray," a cell-phone tower that emits a false frequency, which can be used to track Hec and Ricky's cellphones.
Analysis
The stakes are raised when Ricky accidentally makes it seem like Hec has molested him to the men they encountered. Now they are not only missing, but people think Hec is abusing Ricky, even though this is not the case. While Hec had hoped he could just bring Ricky back to Child Services and hand him over to the authorities, he now has to grapple with the legal ramifications of the rumor that he has been abusing Ricky. Heightening these stakes even more is the fact that the audience knows that this is not the case, which creates an instance of dramatic irony, in which we know something that the antagonists (Child Services and the town at large) do not know.
At this moment in the film, Hec and Ricky find themselves in very similar situations, each trying to avoid some kind of incarceration. While Hec fears that the authorities will not be sympathetic to his plight and throw him in jail, Ricky also suspects that Child Services will continue to move him around and send him to juvenile prison. The two of them suddenly find themselves with a lot more in common than they initially suspected, and must go forward into the bush seeking a life that is disconnected from the rest of society.
Another thing holding Hec and Ricky together is the fact that they are all the other one has. When Ricky tries to tell Hec about Bella's wish to have her remains scattered near the lake in the bush, Hec insists that Bella had no idea where she was from, and was attracted to Hec and Ricky because they did not have families. Hec and Ricky are orphans in the world, as Bella was, and this isolation is ironically what brings them together and bonds them in a world where no one else wants them.
For the first time in the film, Ricky encounters someone his age when he runs into Kahu, a Maori girl who lives near the cabin where he left Hec. She is tough and unfazed to see a "wanted" boy in her home, and the two strike up an unlikely friendship. Ricky falls a little bit in love with her as well, staring at her with a look of longing in his eyes as she talks to him. After spending so much of the film only bonding and interacting with adults, Ricky finds himself with something he didn't even know he needed: a peer.
Even as Ricky finds some emotional safe zones, he is certainly not in the clear physically, as Child Services and the cops are still hot on his heels. The antagonist, Paula from Child Services, is painted in broad and comically evil strokes. She grimaces and yells at people, and exhibits a rabid paranoia and authoritarian personality that signals to the audience that she has no interest in the well-being of children, but only in order, control, and punishment.
